As I posted earlier, I was away during this oh-so-close-to-home event. I got back last Friday and had occasion on Monday evening to check out some of the damage at Washington Crossing park, which was hit by the New Hope PA to Ewing NJ tornado. I was roughly inside the area marked in the red circle below, which includes the main entrance into the park from Washington Crossing-Pennington Road. There were numerous large trees uprooted, and it was amazing to see the grass flattened in spots. I was trying to relate what I saw to the tornado’s plotted path and rotation, and it was not making sense to me.
I know the path as shown does not represent path width. But I assume it represents the center of the path. What didn’t make sense to me is that on the northern side of the plotted path, just north of the entrance road that you can faintly see on the map, I saw numerous uprooted trees pointing SE, indicating a NW wind (see crudely-drawn arrow). One would expect wind in the *opposite* direction in that location, unless the tornado was anti-cyclonic (if it was, that would have been unusual enough to have been mentioned somewhere, but I have seen nothing like that...) More confusing, I saw one tree that looked like it had been blown in the opposite direction (toward the NW) in the midst of all of that. And just one other blown over toward the NW just to the south of the entrance road, but then another blown toward the SE a little farther to the south of the entrance road. If I ignore the plotted path, I would expect trees blown to the SE to be in a southern quadrant of the tornado, and to the NW in a northern quadrant. If I had continued to walk further away from the entrance road to the NE, would I have seen trees blown in the opposite direction of the others, to the NW? Maybe, but that wouldn’t make sense relative to how the path was plotted, and anyway it seemed like the damage had stopped where I stopped walking. It was perplexing, and really bothered me that I couldn’t make sense out of it, but admittedly I am not a damage surveyor...😏
I attempted to go back for another look the following evening on my way home from work. The skies were darkening with storms developing, but I had no clear view of the sky on my drive. I arrived at the park, pulled into the lot, and checked radar before venturing out. It turns out a severe storm was bearing down on me, just four miles away. Is there no end to the cruel irony of weather, thwarting my attempts to survey the damage from a tornado right near my home that I missed because I was away?!? 😒
Anyway, if anybody has any insight that can help me make sense of my observations I would appreciate it!
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